Category Archives: Australia news

Lawyers for Australian student who lost eye during IDF raid in West Bank doubt Israel will investigate

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Foreign minister Penny Wong has demanded full review into wounding of Ranem Abu-Izneid in November but legal team claim there have been ‘no updates’

Lawyers for an Australian dentistry student who lost her eye after being struck by shrapnel in the occupied West Bank say they doubt Israel is investigating the matter despite the foreign minister, Penny Wong, demanding a comprehensive probe.

Palestinian-Australian student Ranem Abu-Izneid, 20, was sheltering with her friend on 15 November 2024 at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, when she says a bullet fired by Israeli forces penetrated the window. She later lost her right eye.

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Australian PM voices concern after report Russia requested access to Indonesia air force base

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Anthony Albanese says ‘obviously do not want to see Russian influence in our region’, and analysts say it is unlikely the unusual request would be granted

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has said officials are seeking further information after a report emerged that Russia is seeking to base military aircraft in Indonesia’s remote Papua region, on Australia’s northern doorstep.

Albanese said on Tuesday: “We obviously do not want to see Russian influence in our region, very clearly.

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Peter Dutton says he will help his children with a house deposit ‘at some stage’

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Both major parties spruik housing policies, with Anthony Albanese saying critics may not have read all the detail of Labor’s plan

Peter Dutton says he will help his son with a housing deposit “at some stage”, a day after dodging questions about whether he would use his family wealth and salary to assist his children to get into the market.

Dutton on Monday brought his 20-year-old son, Harry, on the campaign trail to talk about the difficulties of saving for a home. Harry said he and his sister, Rebecca, had both been “saving like mad” to scrape together deposits of their own.

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Man’s body pulled from water after car hits wife and plunges them both into Parramatta River

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The 74-year-old woman is in hospital after being rescued by a man working nearby at Greenwich in Sydney’s north

A retired married couple were at their regular fishing spot in Sydney’s north when the man struck his wife with the car before both plunged into the water.

The 74-year-old woman was rescued from the Parramatta River in Greenwich by a man working nearby, and was in Royal North Shore hospital with non-life-threatening injuries where she was being supported by family and friends.

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Woman killed in late-night drive-by shooting in Sydney suburb

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Police searching for perpetrators after multiple shots fired at home in Ambarvale, on the city south-west outskirts

A drive-by shooting has killed a woman in her 60s and left a suburban Sydney home peppered with bullet holes.

Those responsible remained on the run on Tuesday following the overnight attack in Ambarvale on Sydney’s south-west outskirts.

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Australia does not have enough tradies to fulfill Labor’s housing promise, experts say

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Construction industry already faces shortfall of 80,000 workers as government vows to build 250,000 homes a year for four years

Australia does not have enough construction workers and other tradies to meet election pitches to boost housing supply, experts say, casting doubt over the major parties’ pledges to address housing affordability.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton announced their competing housing plans this week, with both major parties seeking to increase the number of new home builds above the current annual rate of about 170,000.

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Victorian Liberal leader distances state party from Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal: ‘Our focus is gas’

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Exclusive: Brad Battin says he had a conversation with the federal opposition leader about the ‘language’ he would use about plans to build a nuclear reactor in eastern Victoria

The Victorian opposition leader says he discussed the language he would use to distance the state party from the federal Coalition’s campaign to build a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley, telling Peter Dutton “it’s your campaign”.

The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne is one of seven proposed sites for the federal Coalition’s proposal to build nuclear reactors, the centrepiece energy policy the federal Liberal leader will be taking to the 3 May poll.

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Finance minister vows to slash more consultants and accuses Coalition of importing Trump’s Doge agenda

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Exclusive: Katy Gallagher says focus will be ‘on driving cultural change’ within public service if Labor wins the election

The finance minister has vowed to continue slashing the government’s use of consultants and rebuilding the public service if re-elected, while accusing the Coalition of importing a Doge-style agenda from the US.

In an effort to highlight the public service as a key campaign issue, Katy Gallagher said Labor had inherited an agriculture department that was “going broke”, a “bin fire” at home affairs, a social services department with no internal policy unit and “total disasters” in aged care and veterans’ affairs agencies.

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Guardian Essential poll: Labor pulls further ahead of Coalition as voters back Albanese on cost of living

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The survey is in line with other recent major polls which have all showed movements toward the ALP

Labor has pulled further ahead of the Coalition as the election campaign continues, opening up a larger lead in the latest Essential poll after two weeks of policy confusion and backdowns from Peter Dutton’s Liberals.

Dutton’s approval rating has also dipped, while more voters rate Anthony Albanese as the better leader on addressing cost of living, providing stable leadership, emissions reduction and keeping Australians safe.

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Coalition scores just 1/100 points for environment and climate policies from conservation organisation

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Australian Conservation Foundation says opposition has ‘failed every single test’ while Labor passes with 54% and Greens achieve 98%

One of Australia’s largest conservation organisations has awarded the federal Coalition just 1 out of 100 for its environment and climate change policies – the lowest score it has given the Liberal and National parties in more than 20 years of compiling pre-election scorecards.

Labor scraped through with a pass – on 54% – while the Greens achieved 98%, according to the scorecard, which ranked the major parties and key independents on their policies for protecting nature, championing renewable energy, and rejecting nuclear and fossil fuels.

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Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained

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‘When academics fear travelling or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem,’ one says

When Gemma Lucy Smart received an invitation to attend an academic conference in the US, she was excited. But that was before Donald Trump was returned to office.

Now Smart, who has a disability and is queer, has decided it’s too risky to travel to Seattle for the social sciences conference in September.

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Labor announces $10m to provide ‘inclusive, culturally safe’ healthcare for LGBTQ+ Australians

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Exclusive: Funding would go towards third-party training for doctors and nurses, which advocates say would remove barriers to treatment

Labor would provide health workers with training to care for LGBTIQA+ Australians in a $10m package to upskill doctors and nurses alongside a new accreditation program, the health minister, Mark Butler, has said.

The election promise, to be announced on Monday, would see Labor contract a training provider to design programs to train healthcare workers to help give “inclusive, culturally safe primary care” for gay, lesbian and gender-diverse Australians.

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NSW’s sole women’s-only clinic dedicated to trauma ends ‘gamechanging’ focus

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Specialists at Ramsay Clinic Thirroul have reportedly resigned against backdrop of larger shortage of psychiatrists across state

In 2022 Ramsay Healthcare opened Australia’s first women’s-only hospital “dedicated” to trauma-related mental health issues in Wollongong.

Ramsay Clinic Thirroul was supposed to be a “gamechanger” designed specifically to provide women – often survivors of family and sexual violence – the safe environment needed to be able to escape the flight or fight stress response and begin to recover through a program of therapies.

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Ten things we learned from Anthony Albanese’s speech at the Labor party campaign launch

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The PM addressed a crowd of 500 people in Perth, spruiking new policies on housing and tax deductions, celebrating WA and invoking Donald Trump. Here’s what you may have missed

Labor’s election campaign launch in Perth was headlined by a $10bn housing pledge, a vow to help first home buyers and a new $1,000 “automatic” tax deduction for all workers.

It also featured a former prime minister, gags about rugby league and more than a few digs at Peter Dutton alongside Labor’s claims that he is copying Donald Trump’s political playbook.

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Election 2025 live updates: Dutton tells Liberal campaign launch ‘Australia will become a nuclear powered nation’ and Coalition will again ‘stop the boats’

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The opposition leader is launching the Liberal party’s campaign at an event in south-western Sydney. Follow live

Albanese tells Australian UFC fighter to ‘go hard’ in message of support before headline match

Some Australians will be glued to a brutal fight between two battle-hardened competitors duking it out in a no-holds barred street fight televised today across the land. And it’s sure to get ugly.

I’m in my own title fight at the moment, but I want to wish you all the best for yours. I know you’ll dig deep and make Australians proud. You are one of Australia’s great sporting champions. When you enter the octagon this weekend, Australians will be cheering you on. Go hard.

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Outback publican finds hostelry coated in mud as residents return to tiny Queensland outpost after flooding

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Avadale’s one police officer says damage is heartbreaking but locals are resilient – ‘They’ll get it done’

When Koss Siwers returned to his pub in outback Queensland nothing was where he left it and pretty much everything was coated with mud.

Residents of Adavale, 900km west of Brisbane, have started coming back to the tiny outpost after evacuations forced by widespread flooding.

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Rightwing lobby group Advance says it makes ‘no apology’ for support given to anti-Greens groups

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Spokesperson acknowledges supply of flyers, T-shirts and corflutes to ‘dozens of community groups’ seeking to defeat party’s candidates

The rightwing advocacy group Advance has acknowledged it is paying for election materials attacking the Greens to be used by third-party groups during the election campaign.

“Advance is working with hundreds of volunteers from dozens of community groups to defeat Greens candidates and we make no apology,” a spokesperson said.

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Community groups furious Coalition nuclear plan would go ahead even if locals oppose it

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Opponents of policy say locals should be ‘very angry’ they will not be able to veto generators in their towns despite Coalition promise to consult them

There is a “growing backlash” to the Coalition’s nuclear plan, with community groups furious at the lack of consultation and angered that the policy would not give local communities the power of veto and that nuclear plants would be built regardless of local opposition.

Opponents say pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear for Australia has been hosting information sessions but that they make it overly difficult for people to attend, make it hard to ask questions, and are not able to answer those questions that are posed.

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Jacinta Price says Coalition will ‘make Australia great again’ – then accuses media of being ‘obsessed with’ Trump

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Senator channels US president during election campaign event, but says Coalition’s government efficiency unit ‘not an ode to Donald Tump’

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has rejected comparisons to Donald Trump after announcing she wanted to “make Australia great again” at a campaign rally in Perth.

The outspoken Northern Territory senator joined Peter Dutton in the seat of Tangney in Perth’s inner suburbs as the Coalition looks to win back Labor’s “red wall” in the western state.

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Child killer Rick Thorburn, who murdered Tiahleigh Palmer, found dead in Queensland jail cell

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Thorburn was jailed for life after admitting to killing the 12-year-old foster child after his son Trent confessed to sexually assaulting her

Rick Thorburn, the Queensland man who was serving life in jail for the murder of 12-year-old foster child Tiahleigh Palmer, has been found dead in his cell.

Queensland Corrective Services confirmed he had died in his Woodford Correctional Centre cell on Saturday.

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